Ian, I agree completely with your thoughts on the benifits to many of a forum that is not strictly just music.

Where we seem to differ is that I believe it would be desirable for people to be able to choose whether to join in with the other stuff or not and I see no reason why creating a split forum should prevent those who wish to continue to join both to do so. I also believe that there is absolutely no reason why operating 2 forums (or perhaps as Ed suggested making full use of the filter) should prevent one person reading the mixture of threads and another reading only music.

My agenda, if you want it:

1. Hope for a more peacefull Mudcat and continue to believe/ argue that moderation in thread creation is benifical.

2. Try to provide short term extras for the enjoyement of myself and hopefully for the benifite and enjoyment of others. And to continue to develop alternative or extra solutions where I believe I see shortfalls here, a place for extras, or the possibility of better solutions, e.g.

3. Hope that people see these extras and perhaps see scope for improvement here and that changes are possible - just talking seems to get me know where. I'm under no illusions about credit - not really bothered - just hope that some of the better ideas creep in here - perhaps in a years time, they may even get re-proposed - thought of as a new idea and filter in here. That is where I wan't to see everything and under the Mudcat banner - or more accurately considered on thier merits..

As for 3, I guess it would have been nice to have been part of a team rather than the go-it-alone approach but, when you've had to fight to get a change pushed through to prevent ANYONE from viewing ALL member details - needed the involvement of another member before I was listened to, when at a time when Max had said he was short staffed, offered for free to assist with what skills I had, to not even a reply to say "thanks but no thanks", when you have moaned and moaned about other security issuse here - including a SIMPLE method (probably fixed by Jeff - he did listen to me and has done a lot for this place - I think more than anyone other than me and perhaps Jeri realises here) of anyone posting as anyone - completely bypassing the cookie, etc. You may understand why I eventually decided to take the route I did when it comes to showing how other things can work.

Jon